The 115th New York’s account places Sergeant-Major E. Raymond Fonda in a battle near Chester Station, Virginia, on May 7, 1864. The regiment was under fire, and a flanking maneuver threatened its position. In one retelling, Raymond was among the first to notice the danger and called out a warning to his commanding officer.
Other soldiers remembered his willingness to move along the line while bullets flew. The same exposed position that enabled him to see what was happening also placed him in danger. During the fighting he was struck and carried from the field. Later narratives praised his courage; their heroic phrasing reflects comrades’ memories rather than an impartial battlefield transcript.
Raymond survived the immediate injuries, but not the months that followed. Accounts preserved in the archive and summarized in the grave-restoration post trace his treatment from a field hospital to Hampton Hospital at Fort Monroe and then to the Ladies’ Home Hospital in New York City, where he died on 22 July 1864. He was buried in the John Fonda lot at Albany Rural Cemetery; his headstone and associated marble elements were restored in 2010, giving the story a visible memorial in the present as well as a place in the wartime record.
His experience turns a military statistic into a human story. The family archive’s list of wartime deaths includes names and regiments; Raymond’s case also preserves the terrible distance between being wounded in battle and dying weeks later. One may survive the day and still not survive the war.
From The Fonda Family in America: An Illustrated Family History, Draft Edition, October 2026. The book contains the chapter’s fuller context and source notes.
Sources and references
- The Fonda Family in America: An Illustrated Family History: Chapter 6 — A Family Divided: The Civil War Years; October 2026 Draft Edition. See chapter source notes.